As If It Were for the Last Time: Wim Wenders—Film and Photography

Abstract

To look at something as if it were for the last time, as if the thing looked at were disappearing: this article considers what this attitude reveals about Wim Wenders's work in film and photography. For Wenders, photography has several overlapping functions: it is a medium with its own aesthetic requirements and demands, a way to reflect on the nature of cinema, and, most challenging of all, a form of temporal experience characterized by a sense of things passing. Drawing on these functions, the article traces connections between photography and cinema to shift our understanding of Wenders's career from that of a filmmaker who also takes photographs to someone for whom the photographic image—its history and temporal implications—plays a central role in his creative practice.